A woman's view of hunting…with men
guns, dogs and birds
The other morning the dogs noticed something on the steps. They each rushed to see what the intruder was. It was a large slug, stretched out about 3 inches long. Charlie and AJ sniffed it and stepped over it to get to the door. But not Orso. Orso stuck his nose close to the slug and turned around and went back up the steps to the top of the landing and wouldn’t come down. Ninety five pounds versus one ounce (if that) and the slimy little monster won. I could not get him to come down the steps.
Thinking that I don’t have time for a neurotic dog, I looked around for a stick to pick it up with and thought that no, I didn’t want to put it in my garden. That would be like taking an alcoholic to a wine tasting. I saw a large rock, so I picked it up and placed it on the slug. Only then would Orso come down the steps. What a sissy.
At that moment, Paul walked up and started to talk to us, saw the look of my face, and asked if everything was all right? Paul always looks out for me, knowing that Mitch sometimes has too much confidence in me, so Paul worries.
I said, “Everything is fine.”
“Oh I’m sorry, I interrupted you two,” he said thinking we were arguing.
Mitch said, “It’s not that, Susan just needs to use the ladies room.”
So Paul moved off and Mitch handed me his packet of travel Kleenexes as well and said, “When we start off working this draw, lag back and find a secluded spot and make the necessary adjustments.”
It seemed like it took forever to get everyone rounded up and get moving. The six of us started working the draw in a “vee” shape with me towards the back. Mitch walked over to me and pointed out a dense area ahead. I spotted a likely spot, fairly secluded with two trees and tall underbrush, just the ticket to cover my exposed body. All the while, I was thinking to myself that if I have bloodstains that show, I would never hunt with these men again. I would just die of embarrassment.
Just as I was settling in and had laid my gun down and was in process of taking off my shell belt, I noticed Patrick, one of the members of out hunting group stop about 100 feet in front of me. I stood there watching as he laid his gun down and sat down on the ground. He unlaced his boot and took it off. I stood gritting my teeth, waiting, hoping he would hurry up. I prayed for lightning to strike him dead. He then adjusted his sock, taking all the time in the world. I was to the point that I almost shot him myself. I was so frustrated that I could only stomp off down the draw, thinking he didn’t know how close to death he was. I caught up to Mitch and he asked if I got everything taken care of.
“No! Patrick decided to sit down and take off his boots.” I was almost in tears.
“Well let’s find you another spot and this time I’ll stand guard,” he said.
Luckily there was another spot not to far ahead that actually had better cover for me. I undressed and checked and found out that it wasn’t as bad as I had first thought. Using both Kleenex packs, I made the necessary adjustments and tPaulfully nothing showed through my pants.
That was the last time I went hunting without taking along extra tampons, even if I had just finished the week before.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this story. I can smile now – but not then.
This is the first excerpt of one of my more embarrassing moments hunting. Looking back, I can smile now, but not then.
One of the most embarrassing moments in my life happened the second year I went hunting. It was the first morning of the hunt, about 10:00 in the morning when I felt it. I had started my period. Here we were, out in the field miles from town or any civilization for that matter and I just started to bleed. Of course this would be the month that I was having the period from hell too. I didn’t have any tampons with me and there was no one to ask because I hunt with all men, not a woman for miles. All I had in my pockets were a travel pack of Kleenexes, for the call of nature. On the rare occasion that I can’t hold it any longer and finally give in to the pressure.
I asked Mitch quietly, “When are we going to break for lunch?”
“About noon, why?” he asked.
“How far are we from town?” I asked without answering his question.
“We’re about 50 miles from town. Why, what’s up?” he asked again.
I looked around to make sure no one else could hear us. It didn’t matter that we live together and this is the man I want to spend the rest of my life with, I am just uncomfortable discussing certain things with anyone.
“I have a problem.”
“What, do you need to go to the bathroom?” We started playing 20 questions.
“Sort of.” I said hedging.
He lifted an eyebrow, “Do you have to do more than pee?”
“It’s not that!”
“Well then, what is the matter?”
“I started my period.” I looked around again; just to be sure no one was anywhere close that might overhear us.
“You didn’t know that it was going to start?’
“No, I have been having some problems lately.” I hadn’t told him about that either.
Then like a man, he said, “Well did you bring something?”
“No, if I didn’t know it was going to happen then why would I bring something?” Men.
“Oh.”
I stood there looking very uncomfortable, knowing the longer I did nothing, the worse it was getting. I could just imagine in my mind what I would look like from behind in a matter of minutes.
The dogs love these and best of all no wheat gluten.
I mix plain nonfat yogurt and canned pumpkin together. Then I spray a cupcake pan with non stick spray and spoon in the mixture. I put the pan in the freezer until frozen. They pop out of the cupcake pan easily. I just put into a container and store in the freezer.
The dogs love them.
We decided that AJ would have to be kenneled when neither of us was home. We didn’t like it, but outside of stripping the house bare of all objects, we didn’t know what else to do. We read that AJ was probably suffering from separation anxiety and that he probably did all of the damage in the first 10 minutes that we were gone, small consolation, but we were at a loss at how to stop the destruction. So we brought in the large kennel from the garage. We put in a blanket to make AJ comfortable and gave him toys and rawhide chews to chew on. Guess what, he didn’t touch the rawhide chews or the toys; no he chewed the blanket to shreds. We found out that the whole time we were gone, he barked almost nonstop. The neighbors told us.
We thought we had the immediate problem solved, but once again we were wrong. You’d think we start getting used to always being wrong. I came home from work one afternoon and there was AJ sitting at the door waiting for me. I slowly walked into the front room thinking maybe this was a clone or something; surely AJ was still in the kennel, because I put him in there myself and was sure that I had secured the door. The kennel door was standing open wide and after close inspection I could see that spring loaded pin was bent. Somehow he got the door opened, maybe he put all of his weight on the door, I don’t know, maybe it was just a fluke. Surprisingly he hadn’t done any damage, probably didn’t have enough time. Same thing the next time we left and put him in the kennel, I come home and there AJ is waiting for me at the door. So far no damage, maybe he was cured. After a couple of weeks of no devastation, I dragged the kennel back to the garage.
AJ is just too smart for his own good. He knew the kennel was gone and there were new trials for us. He switched tactics on us. He started going through the kitchen trash. He would drag the bag out of the can and bring it to the front room and leave us all kinds of things to clean up. Wet coffee grinds in the carpet, along with wrappers and such. Mitch actually put an eyebolt in the wall and used bungee cords to secure the trashcan to the wall. Me, I would have just changed trashcans and put a smaller one under the sink, but knowing AJ, he probably would just open the cabinet door. When dumpster diving didn’t work, AJ decided the countertops held great appeal. I had set a frozen loaf of bread in the sink drainer to thaw; he found it and ate the whole loaf, wrapper and all. He knocked the dog biscuit decanter off the counter and onto the floor pushing it around the kitchen until he ate all of the dog biscuits. This dog was really trying my patience.
We came up with a solution that so far has worked. When we have to leave the dogs home alone, we close and secure the bi-fold doors separating the two sides of the house, the front room and our bedroom from the dining room and kitchen. We would also turn on the radio in the bedroom and give both dogs a rawhide chew. So far this has worked, I think the only reason it has worked so far, is that AJ hasn’t figured out how to remove the rubber bands that keep the doors closed.
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about AJ. He just turned 10 years old and I don’t know who’s more devoted to whom, him to me or me to him. I love him more each day. Of course, he still has all of his faults, but when I look into those soft adoring eyes, I feel such peace and calm wash over me. And I know without a doubt that I would walk through fire for him as he would for me.
This is the second excerpt of my short stories. I hope you enjoy reading these as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them.
AJ didn’t bark or make any sounds at all. We would have been worried about that, but Buddy didn’t bark for days either when we first got him. Maybe it’s their way of getting used to the new surroundings, just sitting back and observing. When AJ finally did bark it was this little hoarse sound that made him sound like he had laryngitis. He has these beautiful eyes that usually have a contemplative expression like he’s assessing the situation. His eye color is the golden brown of a chocolate lab instead of the dark brown that most black labs have and his eyelids come down over his eyes slightly to give him a hooded look.
Because he had this great ability to jump from zero to very high without any effort, he didn’t understand that the bed was off limits to him. When I left in the morning to go to work, he would jump up on the bed and snuggle up to Mitch, who sleeps very soundly. One morning, Mitch woke up and felt a presence in the bed touching him, he looked at the clock and saw it was 6:30 and thought I was still asleep.
He nudged “me” and said, “Susan get up, you’ve overslept. It’s 6:30 you need to get up.”
A black head raised up and looked at him all bleary eyed and then went back to sleep. Mitch decided that if that was the worst AJ did, then he could live with AJ sleeping on the bed. So much for “dogs don’t belong on the furniture”.
We also discovered something else about AJ. He liked to chew. It didn’t matter what it was, if it was within his reach, he would chew on it. I had a pair of old leather Keds that I kept at the end of the bed and wore around the house. I came home from work and there were my shoes, one was now an open toed sandal and the other had no heel. Apparently AJ didn’t like me going to work and leaving him home. I threw them in the trash and Mitch fished them out.
“Why are you keeping the shoes?” I asked.
“Well maybe if those are still there on the floor he won’t bother anything else.”
I was skeptical, but I thought, what the heck? I’ll try anything. This was my first exposure to a dog that chewed up my shoes. Well we were wrong, AGAIN. AJ didn’t stop at the shoes.
I took Mitch to work one day and left the dogs at home. I was only gone for 30 minutes, just 30 minutes. How much damage could he do in that period of time? As I opened the door, there was AJ waiting in the entry hall just like always, happy to see me. I held my breath and hoped for the best. As I walked into the living room total chaos overpowered me. The floor was covered in shredded pages from a travel-guide – obviously not a destination AJ wanted to go. In the middle of the room was one lone mangled hiking boot. The padded top that cushions the ankle was gone – chewed to bits. AJ was right next to me wagging his tail showing me how pleased he was of his handiwork, or should I say molar work. It even looked like he was smiling. I picked up the boot and looked at it closer. The tongue was gone, probably in his stomach. There were pieces of orange foam on the floor. Closer examination determined them to be an insole. How he got that out of the boot was beyond me. It dawned on me that I only saw one boot. So the search was on for the other boot.
I started looking from room to room searching for the other boot, picking up pieces of the boot top of the first boot. I don’t know, I guess I thought that maybe I could glue them together and put it back on the boot and maybe nobody would notice. I found the other boot in the bathroom almost unscathed. The tongue had been chewed, but otherwise it was still wearable.
I walked out of the bathroom with the boot, looking for AJ thinking that death was too quick and easy for him. There he was sitting there waiting patiently by the bed in the bedroom not realizing how close he was to death and mayhem. Time for plan B.
Come back for more.
Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it. I had heard that first from my mother when I wanted something that she thought was inappropriate for me at a certain age. I heard it again when I found I was pregnant and later found out that I was carrying twins. On both of those occasions what I wished for came true and I never regretted the outcome. However, that was before AJ.
Whenever Todd brought out any of his dogs to hunt with us, they were always in a crate in the back of his truck. So to play it safe, we took a large travel crate with us in case AJ didn’t travel too well in cars, or if he and Buddy didn’t get along in the back of the station wagon. We met Todd at the hunting preserve and after we took care of the preliminaries, we paid Todd and he gave us AJ’s registration papers (imagine that – our first registered dog!), Todd let AJ out of his kennel so he and Buddy could get reacquainted. AJ was a little reserved around us, he was waiting to get to work and start looking for birds, but we didn’t have any guns with us. To AJ, we were just more hunters there to hunt with, he didn’t know yet that everything he was used to was going to change drastically.
I asked Todd if AJ was housebroken and he just laughed at me.
“He’s a hunting dog. He doesn’t come in the house. Just give him a doghouse and put him on a chain, he’ll be fine.” Todd said.
“That wouldn’t be right. Buddy is a hunting dog and he stays in the house. AJ will stay in the house too. We’ll just work at house training him,” I said.
“You are going to be sorry if you do that. AJ is a male, he will mark every wall and piece of furniture you have before you get him house trained.”
“Well we thought about that and we’re not interested in using him for stud,” Mitch said, “So we will probably have him neutered.”
Todd said, “That would probably be a good idea. But I still think you’d be better off leaving him outside.”
When it came time to load up, AJ wouldn’t get in the back of the station wagon. It wasn’t what he was used to. This was the first clue, but we weren’t paying attention. We coaxed and pleaded and Todd ordered AJ in his oh so “stern” voice, to get in the crate. Buddy was jumping in and out of the back of the car and barking at all of us and being a general pain in the neck. Finally we got AJ into the car, but he wouldn’t get in the crate so Mitch just said to leave him out. Buddy was still barking and now AJ wasn’t sure what was going on but he didn’t like it at all. He looked up at Todd with this scared look on his face as if to say, “Please don’t leave me with these people. That dog won’t shut up and the woman keeps touching me. Make her stop!”
We said our goodbyes and started off down the road. AJ just stood in the back of the station wagon and watched not real sure about everything yet, but he didn’t panic. Buddy settled down and picked his favorite spot to lie down and take up as much room as possible. We stopped at every rest stop to give both dogs plenty of pee and sniff time. AJ started warming up to us a little more and actually started to relax and lie down.
The first of many challenges we encountered with AJ was when we got home. We let the dogs out of the car and let them wander around and stretch before going inside. Buddy went down the steps to the door of our home and AJ just stood at the top of the landing and wouldn’t budge. Being a strict “outside dog”, AJ didn’t know how to go up or down steps. This was going to be really interesting trying to teach AJ the mechanics of going up and down steps in one easy lesson. It ended up that Mitch had to carry him down the steps and into the house.
Mitch said, “He better figure out stairs real quick.”
Challenge number two became immediately apparent when we finally got inside. AJ didn’t know what linoleum was. I had never seen a dog stand on his tiptoes before. I didn’t know a dog had tiptoes for that matter, but AJ did. He locked his legs, extended his toenails out and lifted the pads of his feet and wouldn’t move. He just froze. He didn’t know how to walk on the smooth cold surface. It never occurred to either of us that a dog would be afraid of a floor. We stood there and laughed at him and each other, because not only was Stairs 101 on the lesson plan, but now we had added Hard Floors 101 also.
I took all of the throw rugs and extra towels and laid them end-to-end as a sort of pathway for the dog to walk on, covering all of the smooth surfaces throughout the house. Didn’t that just look special? I couldn’t believe it. Housebreaking was going to be a little tougher because you had to walk on smooth surfaces to get to the doors. AJ was a real “outside” dog. I was beginning to wonder at the wisdom of our decision. We decided that this was enough stress on all of us for one night and put AJ in the bedroom with us and closed the door so if he got any “urges”, I would wake up and take him outside.
Please come back and read more of AJ in the second excerpt.
A woman's view of hunting...with men 